America’s two partiesParties were riven by antagonism over slaverySlavery, increasingly from about 1820 until the Civil WarWar. However, both before then and for much of the period after that warWar until the late twentieth century, divisionsDivisions between them also involved matters that were less connected to each other. While many white southern politicians often had to proclaim their racism at elections until at least the 1960s, there were other issues that made some of them have attitudes that were not stereotypical. It made for two political partiesParties that were not polar opposites. From the later 1960s that started to change, with more RepublicanRepublicans leaders making direct electoral appeals to fundamentalistFundamentalist Christians. The 1970s and 1980s were also a period when individual candidates were able more easily to fundraise for campaigning. Yet alongside this, and especially in the RepublicanRepublicans partyParties, some candidates were also moving more away from the political centre ground. Similar, those less strong developments were evident among candidates, for both the SenateSenate and the House.